Index

At 1920x1080 in Dirt 2, Point of View / TGT overclocked cards managed some envyable scores. GTX 460 Beast and Ultra Charged cards with 1GB of memory ended up faster than the GTX 470.

The same cards with 768MB of memory, however, ran slower than the GTX 470 but only by 2.5% and 5% (respectively) without AA and 7% and 9.9% (respectively) with antialiasing on.

In Dirt 2 at 1920x1080, GTX 460 768MB BEAST outpaced the reference GTX 460 by 20.6% with no AA and 18.8% with AA.

At 2560x1600 in Dirt 2, PoV/TGT GTX 460 BEAST and Ultra Charged cards with 1GB of memory managed to retain their dominance over the GTX 470. Note however that all the cards, even the reference GTX 460 768MB, are good enough to push Dirt 2 at 2560x1600 and maximum graphics settings.

Just like in Dirt 2, Aliens vs. Predator preferred Point of View/TGT GTX 460 BEAST cards over their reference counterparts, regardless of the latter’s frame buffers. In fact, the BEAST managed to beat them by more than 20%.

With its latest driver, Nvidia made sure that GTX 400 series cards get some improvements so if you’re using the 285.96 WHQL driver, you can expect up to 11% better results.

Unigine Heaven test shows possible future performance in games with more sophisticated tessellation.

Metro 2033 is well known for not going easy on graphics cards, and our today’s cards are no exception. Although GTX 460 1GB BEAST beats the reference GTX 460 1GB card by 23%, playable frame rates are only possible when graphics settings are decreased.

FurMark is another test we’ve used and, unlike our previous tests, it uses Open GL.

3DMark Vantage shows what we’ve already seen – Point of View / TGT GTX 460 768MB/1GB BEAST is the fastest GTX 460 card we’ve tested so far. The runner up to the title of the fastest was GTX 460 768/1GB.

Overclocking

As far as overclocking goes, if you’re not one of those that likes to meddle with GTX 460’s clocks, then picking an already overclocked card is a wise choice. Note however that this, together with the accompanying warranty, usually costs a bit extra.

Point of View in cooperation with TGT did a great job and scored some impressive results in overclocking GTX 460 cards. Namely, Ultra Charged and BEAST branded cards running at 824MHz and 855MHz respectively.

GTX 460 BEAST with its 855MHz core and 4020MHz memory is the fastest GTX 460 around. Note that this card is available in two flavors – 768MB or 1GB, both using GDDR5.

Overclocking GTX 460 cards isn’t difficult and it’s quite likely you’ll manage 800MHz with each and every reference GTX 460. Overclocking beyond 800MHz is also possible, as evident from many factory overclocked graphics card. The GTX 460 BEAST proudly bears the crown of the fastest 460 available on the market, but it appears that some vendors will offer even faster versions. Thanks to Point of View and TGT teams and their meticulous GPU selections, the graphics market is richer by a few cards, aptly named BEAST, Ultra Charged and Charged. Since BEAST cards are put through even higher clock tests before they were shipped for sales, it’s possible that GTX 460 BEAST owners will be capable of going over 890MHz.

We managed to push the GTX 460 1GB BEAST to 930MHz GPU and 4300MHz memory. With GTX 460 1GB Ultra Charged that number was 910MHz GPU and 4300MHz memory. As far as power consumption goes, we measured 415W on our Beast GTX 460 test rig, which is close to the GTX 470, as our testbed equipped with the 470 drew 420W under load.